Pages

Friday, May 26, 2017

When Donald Trump rode down that golden escalator in June, 2015 and announced he would run for President of the United States, the guffaws could be heard round the world. What a colossal doofus! A shady real estate mogul, a beauty pageant owner, a dubious celebrity famous for firing people, saw himself as the perfect person to fill the highest job in the land. Clearly the run would be short-lived and hilariously inept. In his long history as a famous figure, there was not a moment spent in public service. No sign that he knew a thing about governing or world affairs. No sign that he even cared. What on earth would qualify him?

The closest he had ever come to government involvement was when he pretended he had proof positive our then-sitting president, Barack Obama, was born in Africa, making him illegitimate and unfit to serve. It turned out, of course, to be a lie, but the fact that the lie would not die energized Trump and gave him the idea that he of all people might just be able to pull that president thing off.

He blustered his way through a long campaign that put him in front as the fiery populist against a rigid, anachronistic loser of an establishment. Along the way he discovered the benefits of the religious right, a gun culture based on fuzzy Second Amendment logic, fears of a rogue government fueled by right wing talk radio and Fox News, and a work force desperate enough to want to believe a slimy billionaire known for stiffing underlings could be their messiah.

The seduction of screaming crowds hooked him but good. From that first rally forward he would do whatever he had to do to win. He knew he had to give lip service to the needs of the country, but it would always be Trump first, cronies second, and the country a distant third.

He saw early on that his crowds loved him most when he dropped his billionaire mantle and pretended to be one of them. He took to wearing flaming red "Make America Great Again" baseball caps. He developed a rumpled look, used superlatives like "beautiful, fantastic, the greatest", and made promises he could never keep about what he and he alone would do if elected.

He waged war against the press, a known fascist tactic, and the press, to our surprise, didn't fight back. They ate it up.
But his ace-in-the-hole turned out to be Hillary Clinton, a far more qualified candidate who, after years of attacks from both the left and the right, was waging an uphill battle. Just as Trump had pressed for Obama's birthplace illegitimacy with no basis in fact, he took to calling his opponent--without a shred of evidence--a crook. He built a flimsy case based on a handful of errant emails and rejoiced when his crowds took to chanting "lock her up!"

He found he could say anything and his followers would buy it. He was eerily on to something when he said "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and I wouldn't lose any voters." He knew his people far better than we did.

And then the thing happened that was so far-fetched no one but a few observant pundits would have believed it: Donald Trump became president of a country that had long warned against creeping fascism and the threat of oligarchy. His mission was to take apart a government based on constitutional regulations and social constructs, and now he was on his way. His motto and guiding principal is as he said soon after taking office: "I'm president. I can do what I want."

Did the Russians have a hand in attempting to alter our election? Of course they did. Could Trump surround himself with any more Russian operatives? Yes, he could and probably will. A country that once saw Russia as our enemy now embraces a president who cannot and will not condemn them. In time, we'll find out why. We will follow the money and find out why. But in the meantime, who are these people with access to our most sensitive secrets? Top security clearances go to anyone Trump wants in the room. The vetting process--a process once seen as serious and inviolate, with a threat of jail for lying on security clearance applications--is another in a long list of obligatory regulations meant only for other people.

Already, less than a half-year in, the Trump administration is embroiled in scandals of a magnitude far beyond anything we could imagine that night we gasped at the realization that this vicious, egotistical, supremely unqualified man-child would be leading our country. The scope of scandal is breathtaking, even at this early stage, and it promises to get worse.

And now Donald Trump has taken his Ugly American act outside our borders, showing the rest of the world what a terrible choice we've made. In every country he has visited--Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy, Belgium--he is an embarrassment, an object of ridicule, a preening, ignorant, crude representation of the worst of us.

He is our first un-American president. Americans now have to decide what that means and how we'll deal with it. Our true character is being tested and the fate of our nation depends on the course we take. Trump may see our presidency as a joke, and Washington as his playground, but we've struggled too long and too hard as a country to become Donald Trump's willing foils. No matter what he says, he just isn't worth it.

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

So once again I have to apologize for being away after I said I wasn't going away. I went away. But I wasn't gone. I settled in at Facebook and Twitter, talking short, saving my energies for some real stuff.

So now I'm tussling with what some laughingly call "chemo brain", but even I can see that Donald J. Trump has brought himself around to some heavy shit. It's as if the whole world is watching, horrified, and all Trump is willing to acknowledge is he's the supreme-top-dog-celebrity-du-jour holding the golden Get Out Of Jail Free card. Tralalala and fiddle-de-dee. (I'm the President! Can you believe it?)

Lots to cover, but it won't come from me. I can't keep up, let alone make sense of it. But today a memo surfaced wherein James Comey, famously canned FBI Director, wrote at the time and for the record that Donald Trump asked him to lay off on an on-going investigation of reluctantly canned National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. That's a big no-no, but Teflon Don lets this stuff slide off of him. Lucky for us, those we count on are attempting to stay sane. Things are unraveling, unhinging, getting rather, shall we say, nuts.

And, oh, the foaming! Just today!

What?? That's obstruction of justice! No, it's not! Where's the memo? Why now? Was the convo taped? Nothing to see here. Get those damned leakers!

In that same memo, Comey says Trump started the conversation by telling him he should be throwing reporters who leak classified information in jail. That was the softball. Then Trump asked Comey ever so nicely if he couldn't see his way to just let Flynn go. "He's a good guy", sez Trump. "Yes, he's a good guy," sez Comey.

Sigh...

I should be reporting now on what Comey said to Trump but here's the thing: I'm not finding it. Did he wriggle, did he waffle, did he pretend he didn't hear? Did he grunt and shrug his big shoulders? DID HE SAY ANYTHING??

I don't know.

But I just want to say, Go Democrats! I mean it. GO. The ball is in your court. You're in the catbird seat. (Feels good, huh?) You can do this! Stay calm, get the facts, don't follow dead ends, eyes on the prize. Don't back down. Don't even think about all those other times you thought you had him but you didn't. Beat the bushes for any Republican wiping tears or rending garments. Bring them into the fold. Don't even hint you're judging the hell out of them. Grab every Independent. Be nice.

Followers

Join our discussions on Facebook

Come on over!

Tweet, tweet

Solidarity Michigan

Internet Rumors Debunked

FactCheck.org

Thanks to the Labor Movement

From Political Loud Mouth

"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties - someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal', then I'm proud to say I'm a Liberal."

-John Kennedy

Any Other Questions??

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Written by Lawrence O'Donnell and spoken by Jimmy Smits as Matt Santos on The West Wing

About the Photographs:

Many of the photographs, unless clearly historic or news-related, are the property of Ramona's Voices. It's only polite to provide a link back to this site when using them. Letting me know you've used one would be good, too.

Creative Commons Copyright Notice

Google Page Rank

statcounter

What's going on here:

This is the site of a die-hard Democrat and a proud liberal woman. I care, I cry, and when I do I don't become a snowflake, I become a warrior.

Donald Trump, yes, THAT Donald Trump, is the President of the United States and the idea of checks and balances has been filed under "quaint". The Constitution is tattered and torn. Hand-wringing has become a national pastime.

After 10 years of this, I thought I might retire to the Shire, but, no...

The mountains are high and I am small, but Donald Trump is the president and that's just not right.

I trudge on.

Ramona Grigg, Writer, Fighter, Dreamer.

(The door is always open and I love company, but haters will need to do it somewhere else. We're all grown-ups here.)